


Family Matters

by ah_maa_zing



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: One Shot, Prompt Fic, Season 3.5-ish, spec-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4398392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ah_maa_zing/pseuds/ah_maa_zing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Diggle reflects on his relationship with Oliver after receiving a photograph in the mail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Matters

**Author's Note:**

> A little one-shot based this photo: https://40.media.tumblr.com/d08e732bbe24425941c251c4cc18fe9c/tumblr_inline_nrsucruwly1qaci4d_540.jpg
> 
> and an ensuing anonymous prompt about where the picture might live.
> 
> Disclaimer – I have no idea where that picture was taken. I just randomly picked a place that sounded peak-like.

“What have you got there, Johnny?”

John Diggle started a little at his wife’s voice, especially because it came from mere inches behind him. Cursing himself a fool, he set the item in his hand face down on the table in front of him, and turned to smile innocently at Lyla. 

“What? Nothing.”

Lyla looked at him in that special no-nonsense way of hers, eyebrows raised sceptically, a half-smile playing at the corners of her mouth. 

Dammit. He never could hide a thing from her. 

Sighing, he picked up the photograph and handed it over. She caught an untidy scrawl on the back of the photo before she turned it over. Her face lit up.

“Oh! Look at them – they look so  _cute_!” 

It was a photo of Oliver and Felicity, standing atop a mountain of some description, dressed in their finest hiking gear – which for Oliver was his usual uniform of cargo pants and a grey t-shirt, and for Felicity, a multi-coloured wrap-around poncho thing. They looked so picture-perfect they could be on the cover of a travelogue, all bright eyes and wide smiles and sunshine sliding off their skin. The crowning glory, for Lyla at least, was the look on Oliver’s face. It could only be described as  _contentment_. Lyla marvelled at the irony of it – the man who had lived in shadows for so long, willingly posing for a picture in the sun. She thought he looked happy. 

Which may have explained the odd look in her husband’s eyes. 

Turning the photo around, she squinted at the words written there.

_Us on Cone Peak. Isn’t the view great? It only took three hours to get to the top of the trail; I may have only complained for two-thirds of that time. In my defence, I was promised a piggyback ride. ~~In his defence, I did get it for that last half hour.~~  _

_We miss you guys. Pls give Sara a kiss from me._

_F  
_ _xo_

Lyla smiled. “I never thought I’d see Felicity take to nature in quite this way. Running away suits them.”

John pursed his lips but said nothing. 

“If I didn’t know you better,” she continued, “I’d say you’re missing him.”

“I’m not  _missing_ him,” he said. Huffily.  “I’m happy for the– _Felicity_. She deserves to be happy. That doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at _him_.”

“Are you still mad because of what he did? Or is it now because he left?”

John looked at his wife, and not for the first time, wondered how on earth she could see him so clearly – even when he couldn’t see himself. He sighed.  

“I’m happy for him too. No matter what I think of his…. _boneheaded_ decisions, after everything he’s been through, he deserves to find some peace. I just…I can’t find it in myself to forgive him. Not after what he put you and Sara through.”

“Sweetie, we’ve been through this. No one was affected more than I was by Oliver’s decision to use me to convince Ra’s al Ghul of his loyalty. I was mad too, of course I was. But as I’ve told you before, you and I have a very different idea of how the world works. Sometimes the only choice left to a person is no choice at all. Oliver and I – we’ve both lived and worked and dealt with the Amanda Wallers of this world, the ‘ARGUS’es. We both know what it is to take a hard decision for the greater good – no matter how much that decision may personally hurt us. You know that Oliver never intended to hurt me or Sara – and he would certainly never do anything to intentionally hurt  _you_.You can’t punish him forever.”

John ran a hand across his face roughly and closed his eyes as the all-too familiar argument began anew around him. Rationally, logically, he knew that Lyla was right. Sometimes in war there were casualties, no matter how hard a person tried to avoid them; he was no stranger to that desperation. But if John Diggle had learnt anything in his years fighting someone else’s wars, it was that the only people you could count on was your fellow soldiers. Your  _brothers_ – bonds forged in the fires of hell itself. Adversaries may be known or unknown, but a brother’s betrayal cut deeper than any enemy’s sword. 

“You only call me ‘sweetie’ when you want something,” he deadpanned. “Look, Lyla –it’s not that I don’t  _understand_ why he did what he did. It’s that I don’t  _agree_. There was always another way. I don’t know if I can ever forgive Oliver for what he did, no matter his reasons. For three years I stood by his side; I had his back. Dammit, I  _saved_ him just as much as he saved me. After all that, he went and teamed up with  _Malcolm Merlyn_ , of all people, instead of trusting the people who’d been by his side the whole damn time. And even if I  _could_ see past that, even if I could try to forgive him for putting you and Sara at risk – even if you already _have_ – how am I supposed to trust him again? How can I know that he won’t turn around and do it all again the next time his back is up against the wall? The faith I had in him, the belief in what he was doing, the trust….it’s all gone. And I don’t know if it will ever come back.”

Lyla moved closer and wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist. Instantly his arms came around her, his chin resting atop her head. They stood there in silence for a moment, drawing – as they often did – strength and peace and love from one another. When Lyla spoke, her voice was a low rumble, so quiet he felt – rather than heard – the words reverberate against his chest. 

“I can’t answer that for you. What’s happened is more between you and him, even if I was the inadvertent cause of it. All I know, Johnny, is that Oliver is your family as much as Sara and I are – in some ways, maybe  _more_. The two of you share something that no-one else can understand. In the last three years, you’ve formed a bond that isn’t so easily shattered. I remember how you were before, Johnny. How lost you had become, how broken. He gave you  _purpose_ ; he brought you back to life. He brought you back to me. And for that, I suppose, I will always love him.” She tipped her head back to look up at him.  “When it comes down to it, John, family is…complicated. It’s precious, and it is love that, in spite of everything, makes it precious. You love Oliver – you always have and you always will – and no matter what he’s done or what he may do or whatever happens next, he’ll never stop being important to you. He’ll always be your brother, and it’s  _okay_ to miss him a little, even when you don’t want to. Dinner’s ready when you are,” she said, and after one last squeeze and a whisper about an empty photo frame sitting in the top-left drawer of the cupboard behind him, handed him the photo and walked away. 

He looked at the photo again. They really did look happy. He hadn’t lied to Lyla – he was delighted for his friends. Both Oliver and Felicity deserved those wide smiles and that carefree happiness. Their lives were so often bleak and miserable and dark that they deserved every last drop of that light. He had found something special with Lyla, built a home and a family with her – with all his heart, John found himself making a wish that his friends would find that same joy in each other. 

She was right, he thought ruefully as he pulled open that drawer and found – exactly where she had said it would be – an empty frame. Family was damn complicated, and for better or worse, those two kids were his family. For the rest of his life he would love them with every piece of his heart. 

He studied the newly framed photograph one last time. 

“Dammit,” he said. “I really do miss you.”

Placing the frame on the mantlepiece, next to other precious memories – of his wedding day, of Lyla, of a newborn Sara, of Andy – John Diggle turned towards the sounds of his family getting ready to sit down to dinner, and moved in to meet them.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos saves lives (or makes fic writers very, very happy!)


End file.
